Can Social Contagion Help Global Health ‘Jump the Shark’?; Comment on “How to Facilitate Social Contagion?”

Document Type : Commentary

Author

Orrery Consulting, Prins Hendrikkade 160, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract

The instrumental use of social networks has become a central tenet of international health policy and advocacy since the Millennium project. In asking, ‘How to facilitate social contagion?’, Karl Blanchet of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine therefore reflects not only on the recent success, but also hints to growing challenges; the tactics of partnerships, alliances and platforms no longer seem to be delivering at the same rate and maybe reversing. A better understanding of how social networks work may therefore be needed to strengthen a tactical instrument that has been used to remarkable recent effect. But in focusing on the unbounded rhetoric and narrative options of Global Health, the danger will surely be on missing the fundamental factors constraining network growth. Future growth will depend on understanding these constraints, and Global Health may do well to think of social networks not only instrumentally, but also analytically in terms of the strategic contexts and environments in which such instruments are deployed.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

  1.  

    1. Rhodes MG. A network based theory of health systems and cycles of well-being. International Journal of Health Policy and Management 2013; 1: 7–17. doi: 10.15171/ijhpm.2013.03
    2. Blanchet K. Governance of health systems; comment on “A network based theory of health systems and cycles of well-Being”. International Journal of Health Policy and Management 2013; 1: 177–9. doi: 10.15171/ijhpm.2013.31
    3. Blanchet K. How to facilitate social contagion? International Journal of Health Policy and Management 2013; 1: 189–92. doi: 10.15171/ijhpm.2013.35
    4. Chen A. Facebook viral marketing: When and why do apps “jump the shark?” [internet]. Available from: http://andrewchen.co/2008/03/05/facebook-viral-marketing-when-and-why-do-apps-jump-the-shark/
    5. Coleman J, Katz E, Menzel H. The Diffusion of an Innovation among Physicians. Sociometry 1957; 20: 253–70. doi: 10.2307/2785979
    6. Piot P, Feachem RG, Lee JW, Wolfensohn JD. Public health. A global response to AIDS: lessons learned, next steps. Science 2004; 304: 1909-10. doi: 10.1126/science.1101137
    7. Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation. Financing Global Health 2012: The End of the Golden Age? [internet]. 2012. Available from http://www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/publications/policy-report/financing-global-health-2012-end-golden-age
    8. Katz IT, Bassett IV, Wright AA. PEPFAR in transition--implications for HIV care in South Africa. N Engl J Med 2013; 369: 1385–7. doi: 10.1056/nejmp1310982
    9. Frenk J. Governance Challenges in Global Health. N Engl J Med 2013; 368: 936–42. doi: 10.1056/nejmra1109339
    10. Drummond M, O’Brien B, Stoddart G, Torrance G. Methods for the Economic Evaluation of Health Care Programmes. Oxford: Medical Publications; 1997. doi: 10.1002/(sici)1099-176x(199903)2:1<43::aid-mhp36>3.0.co;2-7
    11. Ham C. Priority setting in health care: learning from international experience. Health Policy 1997; 42: 49–66. doi: 10.1016/s0168-8510(97)00054-7
    12. Williams A. Economics of coronary artery bypass grafting. Br Med J (Clin Res Ed) 1985; 291: 326–9. doi: 10.1136/bmj.291.6491.326
    13. Over M. Prevention Failure: The Ballooning Entitlement Burden of U.S. Global AIDS Treatment Spending and What to Do About It - Working Paper 144 [internet]. 2008. Available from: http://www.cgdev.org/publication/prevention-failure-ballooning-entitlement-burden-us-global-aids-treatment-spending-and
    14. Anagnostopoulos A, Kumar R, Mahdian M. Influence and Correlation in Social Networks. Proceedings of the 14th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD). Las Vegas: ACM; August 2008. doi: 10.1145/1401890.1401897
    15. Weng L, Menczer F, Ahn YY. Virality Prediction and Community Structure in Social Networks. Scientific Reports 2013; 3: 2522. doi: 10.1038/srep02522
    16. Arrow KJ. Uncertainty and the welfare economics of medical care. 1963. Bull World Health Organ 2004; 82: 141–9.
    17. Glouberman S, Millar J. Evolution of the Determinants of Health, Health Policy, and Health Information Systems in Canada. Am J Public Health 2003; 93: 388–92. doi: 10.2105/ajph.93.3.388
    18. Duhl L.The social entrepreneurship of change. New York: Pace University Press; 1990.
    19. NHS. Co-production for health: a new model for a radically new world [internet]. 2011. Available from: www.sph.nhs.uk/sph-documents/local-government-colloquium-report
    20. WHO. Everybody’s business. Strengthening health systems to improve health outcomes. Geneva: WHO; 2007.
    21. Parkin D, Appleby J, Maynard A. Economics: the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the world? Lancet 2013; 382: e11–5. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(13)61178-2
    22. North DC, Wallis JJ, Weingast BR. A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History [internet]. 2006. Availabe from: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12795

     

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 27 October 2013
  • Revise Date: 16 November 2013
  • Accept Date: 12 November 2013
  • First Publish Date: 16 November 2013

Share

How to cite

Statistics